Colton Haynes Speaks Out Against Homophobia in Hollywood

In a 2016 Out profile, Haynes claimed his first manager dropped him for being gay

By Zach Johnson •Published August 30, 2017•Updated on August 30, 2017 at 10:45 am

Getty Images

Colton Haynes says he was afraid this would happen.

Fifteen months after he publicly came out of the closet, the actor opened up on Twitter Tuesday about losing jobs due to his sexual orientation. "Hollywood is so f--ked up," Haynes, who is engaged to florist Jeff Leatham, told his 1.96 million followers. "So much of the focus is on your personal life &has nothing to do with the talent you have to bring to the table."

Haynes, who rose to fame playing Jackson Whittemore on MTV's "Teen Wolf" and later Roy Harper on The CW's "Arrow," will next appear as Detective Samuels in FX's "American Horror Story: Cult". He' grateful to the creators of those shows--all openly gay men--for giving him work opportunities.

"Thank god for Ryan Murphy, Greg Berlanti, & Jeff Davis. They believe gay actors are more than just their personal lives," he tweeted. "So disappointed in how Hollywood cant understand that playing a character has nothing to do with how u live your personal life."

Andy Mientus, best known for playing Kyle Bishop in the NBC series "Smash," liked Haynes' tweets, telling him, "I'm afraid I know exactly what you're talking about. Be strong, brother."

In a 2016 Out profile, Haynes claimed his first manager dropped him for being gay and then advised him to post an ad on RentBoy.com to earn extra money--something he declined to do. He decided to affirm his sexual orientation in an Entertainment Weekly interview in the spring of 2016, he said, because he was tired of hiding who he was from the world.